This past weekend, at SciFoo 2010, during one of Nat Torkington’s Lightning Rounds, I had a chance to talk about childhood play patterns of scientists, of all of us, and about the benefits of self-directed play. Here’s an earlier blog post on the topic.

Like this:

Related

4 responses to “How Did You Play?”

It’s interesting that you’d ask, the query of play as a child. I was talking to my Mom this weekend, Lila Girvin, a painter in Spokane. She was telling stories about her early “motherhood” — and that I, as the first born, was always disappearing, mostly heading out to play by myself. Surely I had friends, but I was more than fine being alone.

I was definitely a builder, tunnels, worlds, treehouses — as well as a nature explorer, gathering ants, spiders, scorpions — in jars in my room. I liked — and still savor — drawing, making books, stories, adventures…Early graphic novels and journals, I’d imagine.

On the corner of 98th and Roosevelt in Seattle in the 60’s there was a wooded lot. It belonged to Mr. Pitts, father of Jeff who was my pal. There we would gather, a motley crew of neighborhood kids, to join the Free French resistance fighting the Nazis from our Black Forest hold. We were armed with a miscellany of sticks and projectiles – uprooted fiddlehead ferns and dogwood flower pits mostly. The forest was endless and dark. We fought with ferocity, courage and cunning. We were a brotherhood of heros.

The next year we entered 4th grade. Someone noticed I was a girl. The game ended abruptly. Childhood ended abruptly.

What an interesting blog you have. I’m so glad I found it, and I will add you to my blogroll.

Before age 10, when I lived in the city, I played rough games with the neighborhood kids. We often played a game called Smeer the Queer. (Please note that “queer” only meant “odd” back then.) It was kick ball with a twist. When a person missed the ball or kicked it out, everyone else formed a line, and the offender crawled between their legs as the others punched them on the back and sides. In our rough neighborhood, many kids found this to be a form of affection and camaraderie.

Once we moved out of town, I played alone by riding my horse through empty fields and daydreaming about having friends to play with again.

The Attention Project

Attention is the most powerful tool of the human spirit. We can enhance or augment our attention with practices like meditation and exercise, diffuse it with technologies like email and Blackberries, or alter it with pharmaceuticals. In the end, though, we are fully responsible for how we choose to use this extraordinary tool.